The Here and This and Now review at Southwark Playhouse, London – ‘tar-dark, twisted comedy’

Every moment of former fashion journalist Glenn Waldron’s taut little play is a tease.

The biggest and the smallest ideas – from the overuse of antibiotics to the absurdities of office politics – jostle for dominance, and it’s only in the final moments, as the play moves from silly observational humour to world-threatening grimness, that it makes its complexity clear.

In the first half of The Here and This and Now three sales reps for a pharmaceutical firm practise sales pitches with their awful manager on an awful away day. Bob Bailey’s set creates the most soulless office space, from faded pale walls to stackable vinyl-covered chairs. The reps rehearse their patter and technique – “captivate, associate, detonate, kill” they chant in manic transitions between scenes – to sell ineffective drugs for jumped-up prices.

Then Waldron stretches out those themes like some huge piece of elastic, making the play and its meaning reach across decades. That’s where it turns into a tar-dark and twisted comedy involving torture, cryogenics and PowerPoint presentations.

In two vastly different parts, one the most banal setting imaginable, one the most intense and extreme, Waldron looks at the idea of accumulation: how nothing is significant individually, but en masse things have an impact.

That second half is completely carried by the extraordinary Becci Gemmell who, in the course of ten minutes, turns a side-splittingly funny performance into something devastating, brimful of desperation.

There’s the same anxiety about society, capitalism and a strong sci-fi kick as Black Mirror here. But this is better, bigger, despite its fringe scale, and with much more to say.

Part of a double bill of plays from Theatre Royal Plymouth, and simply and gently directed by its artistic director Simon Stokes, the play is further proof of the strength of that vital venue.

We need your help…

When you subscribe to The Stage, you’re investing in our journalism. And our journalism is invested in supporting theatre and the performing arts.

The Stage is a family business, operated by the same family since we were founded in 1880. We do not receive government funding. We are not owned by a large corporation. Our editorial is not dictated by ticket sales.

We are fully independent, but this means we rely on revenue from readers to survive.

Help us continue to report on great work across the UK, champion new talent and keep up our investigative journalism that holds the powerful to account. Your subscription helps ensure our journalism can continue.